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‘Captain’ John launches lawsuit in bid to save ship from salvage at Toronto waterfront

Owner of rusting waterfront relic seeks more than $1.2 million in damages from Toronto Port Authority

John Letnik, owner of the now-defunct floating seafood restaurant "Captain John's," at the foot of Yonge St., has launched a countersuit against the Toronto Port Authority seeking more than $1.2 million in damages.
(Toronto Star / Boris SPREMO)

In a last-ditch effort to prevent his now-defunct floating restaurant from being seized and scrapped, “Captain” John Letnik has launched a countersuit against the Toronto Port Authority seeking more than $1.2 million in damages.

Letnik’s lawsuit, filed Dec. 31, claims the Port Authority has effectively sabotaged his efforts to find a buyer for the ship by refusing to provide a long-term lease for the slip at the foot of Yonge St. or an alternative site on Toronto’s shoreline.

The Port Authority has also violated the Landlord and Tenant Act by forcing Letnik, 75, out of the on-board apartment where he lived after bringing the ship, the Jadran, from his native Yugoslavia in the 1970s, the suit claims.

Port Authority, City of Toronto and Waterfront Toronto officials moved in tandem in June 2012 to turn off the water and shut down the restaurant over years of nonpayment of realty taxes, berthing and other fees that, with penalties, now exceed $1 million.

There are more than $650,000 worth of mortgages outstanding on the ship, according to a statement of claim filed by the Port Authority with the Federal Court on Dec. 2, the critical first step in moving to seize the ship.

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Since the shutdown, the rusting relic has become even more of an eyesore and an irritant for civic officials: In the next few weeks, condo buyers will start moving into their upscale suites in the Residences of Pier 27 development right next door, although the developer of the project had been told the ship, now firmly wedged in frozen Lake Ontario, would be gone months ago.

Work was supposed to start last fall on a park that will run under the gangplank of the 300-foot-long ship.

“I may be down, but I’m not out,” a defiant Letnik says. “I am not running away. What they are doing to me is not fair.

“I started begging them 10 years ago for a (long-term) lease and they just ignored me.”

At least one potential buyer, a multi-millionaire who’d hoped to turn the ship into an entertainment venue, had also asked for a long-term lease as assurance the ship would have a home long enough to make it worthwhile spending millions in restoration.

Port Authority officials declined to comment Friday, but have made it clear in the past there are no alternative sites, especially with the parking, water and sewage capacity to handle crowds.

Both the authority’s December court filing and a marine survey commissioned last November paint a stark picture of a badly listing ship that’s now become more unsightly albatross than civic landmark.

“The vessel’s age and condition preclude any value as an economical going concern,” says the assessment by Bahamas-based surveyor Intamico Shipping Ltd.

There are traces of asbestos on some piping, “old toxic paint flaking throughout” and the strong stench of rot and mildew permeates the main deck, it notes.

Meanwhile, the costs keep climbing every day the ship sits at the foot of Yonge St.: Some $137,414.50 in berthing fees haven’t been paid from May 1, 2009 to Nov. 30, 2013, and those continue to climb at about $85 per day.

The authority’s statement of claim also seeks repayment of $18,830 for charges “incurred to preserve and maintain the integrity, safety and security of the ship and the environment.”

It’s asked the Federal Court to approve the seizure and sale of the ship and an order forcing Letnik to repay the difference between the sale price and money owed to the Port Authority.

The court document describes the ship’s current value as “negligible.”

Letnik plans to represent himself. His only “legal” experience is the few times he’s appeared before Landlord and Tenant tribunals, dealing with tenants of a small Scarborough apartment building he owns who have defaulted on rent.

Letnik’s ultimate goal is to have the case go all the way to the Supreme Court in hopes he can once again challenge a key issue — which he’s lost in the past — that he shouldn’t have to pay back realty taxes because the Jadran is a ship floating in water, not a house anchored on land.

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